Filed August 18, 2010
Indeed, this automatic preservation is required even if a minority group is statistically over-represented in a Case 1:10-cv-00561-JDB Document 23 Filed 08/18/10 Page 50 of 63 41 covered jurisdiction, because, under the new Section 5, unlike Section 2, the existence of “proportional representation” is wholly irrelevant to whether the group’s “ability … to elect” has been “diminish[ed].” Compare 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(b), with De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1020-24. In sum, by abrogating Ashcroft, the new “ability to elect” requirement increases the extent to which “[r]ace … [is] the predominant factor” in electoral decisionmaking “under § 5.”
Filed June 10, 2016
Likewise, plaintiffs need not show that the practice makes voting impossible for minorities—only that it makes voting disproportionately more burdensome. See Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 35-36, 44, 47 (1986); Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 922 (1994) (Thomas, J. concurring). Section 2 thus prohibits not only the outright “denial,” but also the “abridgement” of the right to vote.
Filed March 22, 2007
Specifically, there has been no showing of “a reasonable alternative practice as a benchmark against which to measure the existing voting practice” that provides for greater electoral opportunities than the challenged method of election. Uno v. City of Holyoke, 72 F.3rd 973, 985 (1st Cir. 1995) quoting Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 879 (1994). Plaintiffs cannot show that the current method of election is dilutive of electoral opportunities of minority voters as compared to a fairly drawn single-member district plan that would provide for the election of a 6-member School Committee and a 9-member City Council.
Filed May 26, 2017
Nipper 39 F.3d. at 1531; see also Dillard v. Baldwin County Comm’rs, 376 F. 3d 1260, 1268 (11th Cir. 2004). In drawing this conclusion, the Eleventh Circuit relied heavily on Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874 (1994), in which the Supreme Court held that an alternative plan cannot alter the size of a government body. Yet that is exactly what Plaintiffs propose to do in their proposed remedial plans for the Commission.
Filed January 4, 2012
Bd., 528 U.S. 320, 334 (2000) (Bossier II) (“[T]he comparison must be with a hypothetical alternative . . . .” (emphasis added)); Bossier I, 520 U.S. at 480 (“[T]he very concept of vote dilution implies— and, indeed, necessitates—the existence of an ‘undiluted’ practice against which the fact of dilution may be measured.” (emphasis added)); Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 880 (1994) (opinion of Kennedy, J.); Colleton Cnty., 201 F. Supp. 2d at 635. And for an alternative to be undiluted, as compared to the enacted plan, it must provide “the possibility of creating more than the existing number” of compact minority districts.
Filed January 4, 2012
Id. at 1245 (quoting Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 894 (1994) (Thomas, J. concurring)). Because Plaintiffs have not pleaded and do not contend that the preconditions necessary to state a claim under Section 2 are present, their second cause of action should be dismissed with prejudice.
Filed June 28, 2011
Courts have held that a state has an interest in maintaining the selection model established by its constitution for state officers because “implicit in the first Gingles requirement is a limitation on the ability of a federal court to abolish a particular form of government and to use its imagination to fashion a new system. Nothing in the Voting Rights Act suggests an intent on the part of Congress to permit the federal judiciary to force on the state a new model of government . . . .” Nipper, 39 F.3d at 1531; see also Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 880 (1994) (“In a § 2 vote dilution suit, along with determining whether the Gingles preconditions are met and whether the totality of the circumstances supports a finding of liability, a court must find a reasonable alternative practice as a benchmark against which to measure the existing voting practice.”).